Justice committee  Ideally, being able to capture the whole evaluation on video would be the way to go. As for the technology being there, I can't say it's not there. All you have to do is go to a movie theatre and you see what technology can do. But we certainly don't have those kinds of resources

Justice committee  We use in-car videos for evidentiary purposes currently. It's the same as taping a voice conversation, as long as there's one-party consent. We've been doing that for years. I have 27 years of service, and as soon as we got tape recorders, we used them for videos, because using t

Justice committee  The three standardized field sobriety tests are done roadside. For the person undergoing the evaluation, those same three tests are done again in a controlled environment and two other tests are added. So divided attention tests are done, and that is how we prove impairment.

Justice committee  The walk and turn test in particular has eight validated clues. They include raising the arms for balance, stepping off the line, and having their heel touch their toe. So in order to capture the heel touching the toe, you'd have to have a camera dedicated to watching that, becau

Justice committee  When we're testifying in court, basically we have to paint a picture for the court by explaining in detail what we've done, how we've done it, where we've done it, so the court can conjure a mental image. In some instances it would be nice to have pictures, but again, based on ex

Justice committee  With the drug evaluation, blood pressure is a key component because of the seven drug categories. They do cause the blood pressure to react. The clinical indicators are different. For alcohol, because there's a presumptive level, of course, there's a breath sample taken, and that

Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  Currently every police detachment for the RCMP and, as far as I'm aware, for the OPP, the SQ, and other agencies has an evidentiary breath test, so you'd be looking at every facility having a DRE. When you look at the prairie provinces with small detachments, there have to be hun

Justice committee  I'm not able to answer that. I can speak of places where I was stationed, and the larger centres do have that capability; the smaller ones do not. For the most part, it's too expensive for them.

Justice committee  There are currently 300 in the program.

Justice committee  I am not aware of any jurisdiction that videotapes evaluations. There are a number of problems with trying to videotape them. First and foremost, for any of the police stations that have cameras, the cameras are fixed, so they're going to catch a specific angle. The evaluation is

Justice committee  We are basically looking at the drug recognition expert evaluator as being the same as an evidentiary breath technician. So if you look at the same numbers, overall about 3,000 would be required.

Justice committee  No, not all. In fact, the bill will complement that, because we can deal with drivers who are capable of doing the test. A DRE would not be going to a hospital and testing somebody who is injured. We'd fall back under the current legislation, where a blood sample may be obtained

Justice committee  The legislation prohibiting driving while under the influence of drugs has been in place since the 1920s. The problem is that there has been no mechanism in place to detect it, short of a body fluid sample that we could only get as the result of a crash. With this legislation and

Justice committee  There have been no studies. Based on anecdotal evidence and my own evidence from dealing with drivers, I would suggest you're talking about 85% to 90% of the people who do sobriety tests, whether it's for alcohol or drugs, going back to the police station for further investigatio